


The Story Already Exists

by rocksalts



Series: Suptober20 [30]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dress Up, Gen, M/M, Meddling Sam Winchester, Team Free Will 2.0 (Supernatural), sam and jack are a chaos duo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27323095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocksalts/pseuds/rocksalts
Summary: Jack asks Sam, Dean, and Cas to play dress up with him.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Suptober20 [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977244
Comments: 8
Kudos: 56





	The Story Already Exists

“Are we really doing this?”

Dean was already fitted into jeans and a white button-down that had been buried somewhere deep inside his closet. He’d just finished combing his hair through with his fingers, spritzing it with water to get that off-shore look about him.

“Sure, Dean,” Sam smiles, “It’s for Jack. C’mon, the kid’s _three_. We can at least do this. Besides, what’s the harm in it?”

Dean crosses his arms. He doesn’t have a good argument, and he knows it.

“I’ve just never…you know, played _dress up_ before. You can’t blame me for being uneasy.”

“Sure we have, Dean. We dress up for cases all the time.”

“That’s different.” He stares at Sam a moment. “Hang on,” Dean points a finger at him, “who did he tell _you_ to dress up as?”

Sam smirks, finishing with the buttons on his black button-up and finally turning to him to answer. “Guess you’ll find out.”

“Hey! Not fair,” Dean motions to himself and his attire. “He wouldn’t even tell me who I was supposed to be. What story are we doing? Shouldn’t I, y’know, be getting a script, or something?”

“Dean, this is playing dress up for our kid, not dress _rehearsal_ for an award-winning film of the year. Just—take a deep breath, relax. I’m sure you’ll be happy with who Jack wanted you to be.”

Dean isn’t convinced, but follows Sam nevertheless into the Dean Cave, where Jack had asked them all to meet after getting dressed. They were the first ones there, so Dean flops on the couch and turns on the tv. Sam almost immediately yanks the remote away and sits down next to him, flipping channels.

“What the hell? This is called the _Dean_ Cave for a _reason_.”

“Yeah, well,” Sam yawns, “You owe me for the case in Iowa.”

Dean grimaces but rests again against the couch, watching Sam flip between some murder mystery show and a documentary from National Geographic during alternating commercial breaks, until he feels boredom start to kick in.

He hangs his head back on the couch, about to let his eyes slide closed when he sees the upside-down figures of Jack and Cas step through the doorway. Dean’s head jerks up then, clinging to the blue he’d gotten a flash of, and he twists in his seat to get a better look.

It was blue, alright. It was _Cas_ , dressed in a blue button-down and a darker blue vest on top, hair mussed so that it looked like he had just gotten out of bed. Jack, beside him, wore a red hoodie and jeans.

What the hell kind of story were they about to play?

“You look great,” Jack grins. Sam turns around to look too, then, shutting off the tv. “Both of you!”

“Jack, will you finally tell us what this is about?” Cas asks, exasperated. He pulls absentmindedly at the hem of his vest.

Dean watches as Jack and Sam share a look.

“Hold on, were you two,” Dean glances between both of them, “Were you two plotting something?”

Sam shrugs, trying to hide a smile. “Plot what? The story already exists, Dean. We’re just going to…act it out.”

“What story?” Cas frowns.

Dean feels his heartbeat speed up, looking to Jack for the answer.

“The Little Mermaid!”

He lets out a shaky breath.

“Seriously?” Dean asks. Sam nudges his shoulder, chiding him.

“Yes! Cas reads me a lot of stories before I go to bed, and he told me the tale of the little mermaid. It sounded…familiar,” Jack glances at Sam again, “So I thought it’d be a good idea to see if dressing up would jog my memory.”

“Familiar,” Cas says. He stares down at Jack with confusion. “Jack, none of us here are mermaids.”

“Yeah, and who exactly did you make us dress up as?” Dean adds on. He looks around at all of them, trying to reign in his distant, foggy memory of the one time he’d gotten a glimpse of the movie.

Jack smiles and points at himself, “I’m Sebastian, because he’s my favorite.”

Dean turns his gaze Sam for help. “The crab,” Sam whispers. Dean nods like he knows what that means.

“Sam’s Ursula,” Jack continues, clearing his throat to say the next part in one quick exhale, “Dean-is-Prince-Eric, and Cas-is-Ariel.”

Dean blinks at him, mouth dry. “What?”

“I believe he said that you are the prince,” Cas responds, eyes studying the ground. “And…”

“And _you’re_ …”

“The princess,” Sam finished for both of them.

They all look at Sam, who shrugs and stands up. “Well, time to get this show on the road! Where do you want us, Jack?”

“Now, wait a minute,” Dean holds up a hand, brain still processing, working over the implications of what Sam just said. “Just how far into this are we going?”

Sam looks down at Dean with an evil glint in his eye.

“I think we can fast forward through the beginning parts where it’s just Ariel and get to the part where she meets the prince,” Jack suggests.

“Jack–” Cas protests, but Jack’s already dragging him over to the couch and plopping him down next to Dean.

“Alright,” Jack holds his hands up, as if to set the scene. “So Ariel, you’ve just saved Dean—I mean, Prince Eric—from drowning in the ocean. Eric, you’re still unconscious on the sand.”

“Un–?”

Jack pulls out a small slip of paper for Cas to take.

“What’s this?” Cas asks.

“Your lines!”

“So there _is_ a script!” Dean glares over at Sam, who’s crouched on the other side of the couch. “What are you hiding over there for?”

Sam peeks his head over the back of the couch. “Well, I’m not in this scene. I wasn’t there when you—I mean, _Ursula_ isn’t there when Ariel saves Eric.”

Dean narrows his eyes at his brother, trying to ignore the way his nerves had started to bubble up for no reason.

“Jack, I can’t—” Cas starts to say, eyes skimming his lines, but Jack shushes him and goes around to the back of the couch to hide with Sam.

“Hey, we’re doing this for _you_ , and you’re not even watching?” Dean asks, heart hammering in his chest.

“It’s a private moment!” Jack whisper-shouts. “Besides, we can hear you from here. Just play your part, Dean, and act like you’re asleep.”

Dean sighs. Sounds easy enough.

He moves so that he lays flat on the couch, fighting his own lungs to keep his breathing even. He glances at Cas once, gaging from his slightly panicked expression that Cas had reservations about doing this as well, before closing his eyes and letting Cas take the wheel on this one.

Dean hears Cas clear his throat.

“Is he…dead?” Cas asks. Dean resists the urge to open his eyes at that, smiling a little instead. This was ridiculous.

“I can’t hear his heartbeat!” Sam says from behind the couch. Dean hears Sam and Jack giggle at the tone of voice Sam had put on. Dean’s smile turns into a grin.

“No, look, he’s breathing,” Cas says in the most monotonous tone of voice that is so _Cas_ that Dean has to force down a chuckle.

But the thought to laugh fades quickly when he feels a hand rest gently—carefully—on his face, cupping his cheek and jaw. Dean’s breathing stutters. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, feeling the rest of Cas looming over him like a cloud.

“He’s so beautiful,” Cas continues. It still sounds to Dean like Cas is forcing the words out, but Dean can honestly barely hear them anyway over the sound of his heart beating against his rib cage.

“I would…” Cas falters. Tries again. “I would give anything to live here on earth with you, to see you smile at me. If we could stay here forever, where would we go? Just…just you and I? If I was part of your world…”

Dean opens his eyes, met with Cas’ blue ones staring down at him intently. Cas withdraws his hand and sits back on his calves, holding onto the paper Jack gave him like his life depended on it. Dean swallows hard.

The moment is broken when Sam pops his head up above the couch with a wide smile.

“Ahh…I’m Ursula!! What do you want, Ariel?”

Cas looks lost. “I don’t know…Jack didn’t give me a script for this part.”

“You’re the one that read the story to him, Cas,” Sam deadpans. “You don’t need a script.”

“But then why—”

“Hurry up, Cas!” Jack’s voice says from his spot on the floor.

Cas rolls his eyes. “Fine. Um…hello, Ursula…I’ve come to uh, ask for a favor.”

“Yes?” Sam drawls.

“I want to go on land to meet Prince Eric. Can you, by chance, bless me with bipedalism?”

Sam presses his lips together to contain a laugh, continuing when he’s got it under control, “Perhaps. But for a price!”

Cas stares, waiting for Sam to continue. When he doesn’t, Cas sighs. “What price?”

“You have a beautiful voice, Ariel. If you want to go on land, then I want to take your voice. Hand it over,” Sam outstretches his hand towards Cas who, frowning down at it, makes a motion over his throat, like he’s extracting his voice to give to Sam. Dean thinks the gesture is oddly familiar.

Sam waves his hand around like he’s doing some type of magic. By now, Dean has calmed down enough to huff out a laugh.

“There. Now you have legs. Go find your prince.”

Sam disappears back behind the couch, and Jack pops his head out next.

“Ariel! That was a bad idea! But I will help you go to land because I am your friend. Let’s go!” Jack grabs Cas’ hand over the couch and drags him to go hide with himself and Sam. A few moments later, just when Dean is about to ask what the hell he should be doing, Cas reappears back on the couch.

“Uh…hi?” Dean asks, before remembering that Cas isn’t supposed to speak. He leans over the side of the couch to where Jack and Sam are.

“What do I do now?”

Jack looks up at him. “We can just skip to the part where you guys are on your date on the boat.”

Dean stares, wondering how much trouble he would get into if he reached over and wrapped his hands around Jack’s neck for putting him through this.

“Don’t worry, Dean, you don’t have to say much, just make casual conversation, ask him his name. It’s mostly my lines, anyway.”

Dean turns back to Cas, who looks like he wants to say something more than he has ever wanted to in his _life_. Dean thanks Jack, at least, that it was up to Dean to lead their fake date, instead of Cas with his frankly horrible improv skills.

“So…I think we’ve met before, but I don’t know your name,” Dean starts, looking anywhere but at Cas. “Since you can’t talk…should I take a guess?”

Cas shrugs, but Dean takes it as a yes, to move the story along. Of course, he already knows what it is, but he might as well humor the kid some more while he’s already here.

“Is it…uh, is it Cassandra?”

Cas frowns at him. Dean smiles back cheekily. “How about Anna? No? Not Anna?”

“Ariel, it’s Ariel!” Jack whispers.

“Ariel?” Dean asks. Cas nods. “That’s a pretty name, Ariel.”

“This is the perfect time,” Jack starts to say, “to make a move! Eric, you should kiss her, and give her her voice back!”

Dean’s stomach sinks. He nearly tips the couch over with how quickly he looks back over the side. “Do _what?_ ”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam says, “I forgot one of my lines, earlier. Uh, the only way Ariel can break the spell and get her voice back is if Eric kisses her.”

Dean grips the couch cushions so hard, his knuckles turn white.

“No way–”

“Just a kiss on the cheek, Dean,” Jack gives him puppy-dog eyes. “It’s not for real. Please?”

“Jack, you can’t ask Dean to–” Cas tries.

“Ariel, you don’t have your voice back yet,” Sam says, cutting Cas off before he can finish. Cas shuts his mouth. “Go on, Dean, it can just be a hug.”

Dean turns back to Cas. Just a hug. They’ve hugged before. This would be fine. Normal, even.

So he nods and leans forward, wrapping his arms around Cas in a hug. He feels Cas’ hands on his back, fisting the fabric of his shirt, and when Dean pulls away it’s only far enough back that he and Cas are nose to nose. His eyes flit down to Cas’ lips, and then back to Cas’ eyes. His breath hitches in his chest, heart racing—

No. 

Dean pulls away.

Sam and Jack were just inches away from them. They were pretending. It wasn’t real.

He got up, abruptly, and stormed out of the Dean Cave without a word, just about done with the shenanigans he’d had to endure for the night. When he got to his room, Dean pushed the door shut with a thud, and flopped onto the bed as if the mattress were a black hole.

A few minutes had passed—or maybe it was more than a few minutes, Dean wasn’t exactly sure—when there was a knock on his door. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. The door opened anyway.

“Leave.”

There were footsteps, and a dip on the mattress next to him. Dean turns over to see who it is. 

Cas was playing with his fingers nervously. “I’m sorry, Dean. That um,” he shakes his head a little, “that went too far.”

Cas was still wearing his stupid blue shirt and the stupid blue vest and his hair was still ruffled, and Dean was still angry. So he grabbed Cas’ hands to stop him from picking at them, and brought his other hand to Cas’ face like Cas had done to him earlier.

This time, Dean didn’t think. He leaned forward and pressed their lips together in a kiss, letting his frustration and pent up emotions show through to Cas in the only way he could think of.

When they pulled away, Cas was looking at him with what looked like confusion and worry. Dean tilted his head.

“What?” he asked.

“Was that…was that kiss real or just…part of the story?”

Dean breathes out a gentle laugh. “Both, Cas,” he says. “It was both.”


End file.
